The Concept of Race - Essay Example

Traits include features of outward appearance that enable us to identify members of a distinct population by observation. Members of the division who are considered to be similar are more likely to be sharing ancestry than individuals from different divisions. I am also considered to be sharing the same ancestry with the people of my race. I have also come to know that races are mostly linked with a specific geographic area. I can relate to this because my friends, me, and the people I interact with, are all linked to a specific race depending on the geographic area that we come from. There are three types of race: Negroid, or the black race; Caucasoid, or the white race; and Mongoloid, or people who belong to the yellow race (R. Smedley & B. Smedley, 2012).

I have noted that the race classification concept has proved not to work very well when it comes to humans as compared to other organisms. Reasons for this include: humans inhabit a wide stretch of environments and are constantly traveling to and fro.  An example is that I can travel from Europe to Africa. This makes it very easy for gene flow to occur between me and people in Africa, making it difficult to organize people into distinct groups (R. Smedley & B. Smedley, 2012). By studying Charles Darwin's work I am also able to see that the race concept has no validity, he also considered the classification of human beings into races as a futile exercise. He stated that there is only one human species and for this reason, there are no reasonable grounds for developing human beings at a lower taxonomic level like race (R. Smedley & B. Smedley, 2012).

 Europeans used race as a way of distinguishing and controlling other groups that were not of the same race as them (R. Smedley & B. Smedley, 2012). It is widely known that skin color is majorly used in dividing people into different racial groups. When one has white skin, they are white, and when one has a dark skin color, they are black. This may not be reliable because an individual with African genes may have a similar skin shade as an individual who is of Asian origin. Someone of Asian origin may also have a similar shade as one who originates from Europe. Features such as hair texture and face shape have also been used in classifying individuals into different race groups. Many individuals cannot be classified into these groups of races when these features are used in categorizing people. For example, although native Australians are usually dark-skinned, they are likely to have hair that is curly and light-colored. When we are considering one's skin color, native Australians can be labeled as Africans, but when considering their hair type and facial shape they can be labeled as Europeans. Because of the confusion that developed from this, another type of race was created and is known as Australoid. The concept of race also presumes that greater genetic variation is present inter-racially as compared to intra-racial, but this is not true since greater genetic variations are evident intra-racially. 10% genetic variation in human beings is evident between the created races (Gates, 2014).